Reborn To Love My Stoic Soldier Husband

It wasn't until the nephew she had raised as her own son ruthlessly yanked her life-saving oxygen tube that Clara finally realized the truth: Cade-the rough, older military husband she had despised her entire life-was the only man who had ever truly loved her.

Right now, in the cold, sterile hospital room, that same ungrateful nephew was standing over her deathbed with a sickening smirk.

Clara was sixty-eight years old, paralyzed on the bed and gasping for air. Her lungs felt like they were stuffed with crushed glass. The doctors had said her illness could be cured, but it would cost a fortune.

Trevor leaned down, his breath reeking of stale nicotine.

"You spent your entire life slaving away for our toxic family, Aunt Clara," Trevor whispered, his voice dripping with absolute malice. "You bought my father a house. You bought me a car. My grandmother convinced you to leave every single penny of your estate to me, promising I'd take care of you in your old age."

He let out a cruel, mocking laugh. "But look at you now. Every day you lie here breathing is just you burning through my money. It's all mine now. Why waste it? You're going to die anyway."

He reached for the plastic valve connecting her oxygen tube to the wall.

Panic exploded in Clara's chest. She tried to thrash, to scream for a doctor, but her fingers were nothing but heavy, useless bone and bruised skin. Trevor's other hand clamped ruthlessly over her mouth.

"Just die already, you stupid old woman," he snarled.

He yanked the valve. The hiss of oxygen stopped dead.

Clara suffocated. Fire ripped through her windpipe. She was drowning on dry land. A single, agonizing tear slipped from the corner of her wrinkled eye.

Was there anything she regretted in this life? Yes. God, yes.

In her final, suffocating seconds, she didn't think of her bloodsucking family. Her mind flashed to a face she hadn't seen in decades. Cade.

Her husband. The rough, stoic military sergeant she had treated like absolute garbage. She had despised his dark skin, hated that he was seven years her senior, and loathed the fact that he came with a young stepson. She threw tantrums, ruined his life, and funneled everything he owned back to her greedy mother.

Yet, when Cade died in the line of duty just a few years into their miserable marriage, his will left her every single cent of his military life insurance. "I leave it all to Clara. I am sorry for wasting your youth," his final letter had read. That blood money was the only reason she had survived and built her business empire.

Cade... if I could just do it all over again, I swear I would never treat you like that...

The monitor flatlined. Darkness swallowed her whole.

GASP!

A violent jolt of electricity ripped through Clara's spine. She bolted upright, sucking in a massive, greedy lungful of air.

She wasn't in the hospital room anymore. She was sitting on a hard mattress, clutching a cheap, scratchy red bedsheet. She looked down at her hands. The loose, liver-spotted skin of a dying woman was gone. Her hands were smooth, young, and trembling.

She looked around the dimly lit room. Faded "Just Married" banners hung limply from the peeling wallpaper.

The memory hit her with the force of a freight train. She was twenty years old. This was her wedding night.

Her mother had essentially sold her to Cade for a meager five hundred dollars to pay off her brother's gambling debts. In her past life, she had thrown a massive tantrum tonight, feeling utterly humiliated. She had purposely frozen herself in the winter cold to avoid sleeping with him. The next morning, Cade had been deployed on an emergency mission. They hadn't even consummated the marriage.

Clara calculated the timeline in her head. Cade only had four years left to live before that fatal mission.

Her heart pounded fiercely against her ribs. Not this time.

If God had given her a second chance, she was going to spend these next four years making up for every ounce of pain she had caused him.

She heard the faint sound of running water coming from the cramped bathroom across the room. Cade was bathing.

Clara took a deep, shaky breath to gather her courage. She hopped off the bed, walked toward the bathroom, and pushed open the door.

A thick cloud of white steam rolled out of the bathroom, carrying the sharp scent of cheap Dial soap.

Through the steam, Clara's eyes widened in absolute shock. She had been married to him for a lifetime, yet she never knew he looked like this.

Cade stood facing the small, cracked mirror, his broad, muscular back to the door. He was a soldier. His tanned, bronze skin was pulled taut over a ridiculously muscular frame. Broad shoulders, a sculpted chest, and a rigid core-he looked like a Greek god carved out of solid rock. Water droplets clung to his body, tracking down the deep groove of his spine.

Clara's face flushed crimson. She must have been completely blind in her past life to be disgusted by this man!

At the sound of the door opening, his entire body went rigid.

He moved with terrifying speed. He snatched a faded gray towel from the rack and spun around, wrapping it haphazardly around his narrow waist. His dark, sharp eyes locked onto her. His jaw clenched so hard a muscle ticked in his cheek.

"Get out." Cade's voice was a low, dangerous rumble. It carried the absolute authority of a military sergeant.

Clara didn't move. Her eyes dropped to his chest. There it was. The jagged, raised pink scar slashing diagonally across his left pectoral muscle. In her past life, she had called it disgusting. She had refused to look at it.

Now, her chest ached so badly she could barely breathe. She wanted to press her lips to that ruined flesh.

Instead of stepping back, Clara stepped forward into the humid, cramped bathroom.

Cade's eyes widened a fraction. He took a subconscious half-step back, his bare shoulders hitting the cold, wet tiles of the shower wall. He thought she was here to throw another tantrum.

"I said get out, Clara," he warned, his voice rising in volume. "This isn't the place for one of your tantrums."

Clara ignored him. She looked down at the floor, spotting a puddle of soapy water near the drain. Without a second thought, she planted her right foot directly onto the slickest patch of tile and let her ankle give way.

A short gasp escaped her lips as her center of gravity vanished. She pitched forward, falling directly toward him.

Cade didn't think. His military reflexes bypassed his brain. His massive hands shot out, catching her by the upper arms just before her face smashed into the sink.

Clara crashed into his solid, burning-hot chest. The impact knocked the breath out of her. His skin smelled like clean soap and intense male sweat. It was intoxicating.

The moment his bare hands registered the heat of her skin, he tried to let go. He recoiled like he had touched a live wire.

Clara didn't let him. Her hands flew up, her fingers digging fiercely into the thick, corded muscles of his biceps. She held on with a desperate, white-knuckled grip. Her forearm throbbed violently where she had scraped it earlier that morning running from a local creep in town, but she ignored the pain completely, clinging to Cade like a lifeline.

"Ow," she hissed, squeezing her eyes shut and contorting her face in pain. "My ankle... I twisted my ankle."

Cade froze. His hands hovered inches from her waist, unsure where to put them. Suspicion warred with deeply ingrained protective instinct in his dark eyes.

Clara sagged against him, letting her full body weight rest against his chest, forcing him to bear her load. The physical distance between them was completely erased. She tilted her head back and looked up at him with wide, glassy eyes, totally devoid of the venom he was expecting.

Cade's breath hitched. His Adam's apple bobbed hard in his throat. He looked trapped.

"I can't walk," Clara lied smoothly, her voice a soft, pitiful whisper. "You have to help me to the bed."

Cade let out a harsh breath through his nose. He looked down at her, his jaw set like granite. He clearly didn't believe her, but he wasn't going to risk dropping her on the hard tile.

Slowly, reluctantly, he slid one massive, calloused arm around her small waist.

"Lean on me," he ordered gruffly.

He carefully guided her out of the steamy bathroom. He kept his body as rigid as a board, trying to minimize the friction between them.

Clara rested her head against his shoulder as they walked. She buried her face in the crook of his neck.

A tiny, hidden smile touched her lips.

Once inside the bedroom, he lowered her onto the red mattress and instantly snatched his arm back as if he had touched a live wire. He stepped away, turning his back to pull a military-green tank top over his head.

Just as he turned around, Clara felt a sudden, sharp sting on her forearm. She looked down. Earlier that morning, she had been chased by a local thug in town and scraped a large chunk of skin off her arm. Her clumsy fall against Cade just now had torn the scab open. Fresh blood was seeping down her pale skin.

Cade turned back. His deep, dark eyes instantly locked onto the blood.

He walked straight toward the bed. His massive frame cast a heavy, intimidating shadow over her small figure. The air in the room instantly thickened.

Before Clara could utter a single word, Cade suddenly reached out. His massive, rough hand wrapped firmly around her delicate wrist, pulling her arm toward him.

"Does it hurt?" he asked suddenly.

It wasn't a cold command anymore. It was a low, gravelly whisper that vibrated deep in his chest, sending a dangerous, electric shiver straight down her spine.

Clara bit her lip, forcing herself to look into his intense eyes. "No," she lied, though the scrape throbbed violently.

He clearly didn't believe her. His jaw ticked. Without another word, he turned and grabbed a small first-aid kit from the cabinet. He took her arm, his massive, calloused fingers surprisingly gentle as he dabbed antiseptic onto her wound.

The medicine stung like hell. Clara squeezed her eyes shut, scrunching up her face to keep from crying out.

"You brought this on yourself," Cade muttered, his tone flat.

He released her hand, packed up the kit, and walked straight to the wooden closet. He dragged out a thin wool blanket and a lumpy pillow, tossing them onto the hard floorboards.

Panic flared in Clara's chest. No. In her past life, this was exactly how their miserable end began. He slept on the floor, then the couch, and eventually, the chasm between them grew so wide it swallowed them both.

"What are you doing?" she demanded, her voice trembling. "If you sleep on the floor and refuse to share a bed with your wife, every nosy neighbor on this base will know by tomorrow morning. Your mother will be the laughingstock of the community!"

"My mother doesn't care about gossip," he replied coldly, not even looking at her as he lay down on the floor, fully clothed in his tactical pants and tank top.

The room plunged into a suffocating, dead silence. Clara could hear the steady, controlled rhythm of his breathing.

She clutched her chest, her heart hammering wildly. She couldn't let this happen again.

Clara let out a sharp, terrified shriek. She vaulted off the mattress and threw her body directly onto his makeshift bed on the floor, scrambling under his blanket and pressing herself tightly against his side.

Cade exploded upward. His military reflexes bypassed his brain. He sat up instantly, scanning the dark room for a threat. "What is it?" he barked, his voice laced with interrogation.

Clara trembled-half from actual nerves, half from her own acting-and pointed a shaky finger toward the empty bed. "A spider... a massive, disgusting spider. It was crawling on the pillows."

He stood up, flipped on the overhead light, and tore her bedding apart. He turned back to her, his face set like granite. "There is no spider, Clara."

His towering frame and the sheer, dominating aura rolling off him made her shrink back. "It... it must have run away," she mumbled.

She closed her eyes tightly, refusing to move an inch. I'm not leaving this spot.

"Get back to your bed," he ordered.

"No," she whispered, scooting even closer to him. "What if it comes back?"

Clara felt Cade's entire body go rigid. He let out a harsh breath, clearly out of patience, and lay back down stiffly. "Suit yourself."

Clara smiled secretly in the dark, pressing her cheek against his arm. His body ran incredibly hot, radiating heat like a furnace. His scent of clean soap and male sweat wrapped around her, making her feel safer than she had in two lifetimes.

But just as she thought she had won, his cold voice sliced through the darkness.

"I have a few days off from the base," Cade said, his words hitting her like physical blows. "We'll go to the courthouse tomorrow. We are getting a divorce."